I'm reporting in from one of the most remote places on earth - the Indian jungle of the south western state of Kerala in Wayanad nature preserve. The cicadas are humming, the vines are creeping down the beautifully deep green trees. About an hour ago I felt the light breeze wash across my face standing between a tea plantation and a coffee plantation with pepper crawling up the silver oak trees planted to keep the terraced hillsides from eroding. About three hours ago I watched a flying malabar squirrel (an endangered species) happily eat an entire jackfruit. About 30 hours ago I watched a group of wild elephants happily go about their meal on the side of the national highway through Bandipur. This is Rudyard Kipling's "Jungle Book" jungle (quite precisely). This is one of the only places on earth where there still is Indian jungle and where you can still see wild elephants and tigers, and…they have wifi.
I'll focus on the most amazing experience - the wild elephants. Yesterday while driving on the national highway which runs through Bandipur nature preserve I saw a group of wild elephants. After going through the tiger preserve which was in the height of the dry season and a drought with giant ant mounds and clusters of brown, dead-looking bamboo all over, suddenly I entered Kerala and it became lush and green. There they were, just munching away in a group of six, seemingly oblivious to the traffic on the road. They were noble, intelligent and expressive.
There was a very small baby that stayed under the protection of the entire group and especially his mother - literally, he stayed directly underneath her as she stared down the human incursion. Overall they didn't seem too concerned about the cars until too many pulled up (about 8-10) and people started getting out in large numbers to take pictures while others, including a couple of jerks on a motorcyle drove passed honking over and over again (really, what is the point of that other than to prove you're an asshole?). I was very happy to have taken the video that I did, and I didn't feel like I was annoying them, but I also couldn't help but project that they weren't super happy to become the center of attention, and I was certainly part of that.
When a group of cars honked and more stopped to take pictures, the elephants clearly decided they'd put up with us long enough and changed their demeanor into an aggressive stance, and one even charged at an idiot who came at him too quickly. That was the point for us and for them that it was time to head on, since elephants are very, very dangerous when they are unhappy - they can topple cars and easily kill humans using many different techniques. I didn't want to take a chance, and whether it's personifying them or not, it was clear that they were not OK with the attention any more.
Luckily none of us were poachers (and there were several checks by the forest service where they were allowed to search cars if they thought they looked suspicious), but these elephants are already quite rare and despite our lack of malice, they had to deal with a group of humans encroaching on their lunch. What's worse is that pollution-belching trucks are roaring their way through their last remaining territory. Maybe they don't care at all, but maybe they do, and I'm pretty torn on what that should mean for humans' appropriate behavior. Selfishly, I'm still very elated to have been able to see such a rare occurrence in such close up detail. It leads to an age-old conundrum of understanding where the balance is: If you told me that the elephants would become extinct by my behavior I would obviously not do it- but what about those millions of tiny steps in the middle where it's unclear what the impact is? This is a rhetorical exercise because I don't have a good answer, and India is full of rhetorical exercises without perfect answers.
For the time being, the elephants held their own and continued to chomp away on kilos of green grass. If they toppled some cars it was after I had left. I hope that they can continue to hold their own and not have to topple cars, but they will need humans' help - not necessarily in what we do, but in what we don't do.
Top two: Elephants graze in the jungle at the border between Bandipur nature preserve in Karnataka, India and Wayanad nature preserve in Kerala, India.
Third: Check out the way the group protects the baby by encircling it.
Fourth: After some more cars come, mom protects baby more directly.
Fifth: proof that I'm here! This is as close as I got. Still, I was careful to be slow and quiet, which worked until more cars came and started honking. I hope my presence didn't disturb them. Most people were respectful and quiet, but it only took a few jerks to endanger everyone, including the humans and the elephants. I wonder if this kind of experience will be possible in another 20 years. It's up to humans to make sure it can.
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